Is Podcar another false promise?

Since the concept of a people mover at San Jose Airport was approved with Measure A ten years ago, the project eventually proved to be too expensive to build and operate, not very useful, and ineffective. Nowadays, the city is hosting a Personal Rapid Transit conference, in which PRT proponents are saying that San Jose Airport could have a people mover-like system without the price tag.

PRT, or pod car is a concept that has existed for decades, with the promise of fast, frequent, and non-stop service. Renderings of such systems often feature small cars hanging off a slim elevated track. What PRT doesn't have is a track record of daily revenue service. The PRT proponents are desperately looking for sponsoring cities, along with funding, to prove their concepts.

San Jose politicians are trying to look for a "creative" solution to a superficial problem and while dismissing realistic solutions. The simple way to bring rail to San Jose airport is to extend the light rail system from 1st Street into the airport. Light rail only needs to extend a mile to serve both terminals A and B. Light rail already serves Downtown San Jose and connects with Caltrain, Amtrak, ACE (and possibly BART in Milpitas and high speed rail at Diridon Station). Unlike peoplemover or pod car, no separate maintenance facility is needed for light rail.

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One has to wonder why San Jose is pretending to be progressive on transportation by promoting PRT while actually moving backwards by ignoring light rail. Cities like Portland and Baltimore have light rail located directly at the terminal. Sacramento and Los Angeles are planning to extend their light rail systems to airport as well.

VTA light rail is drawing fewer riders than similar systems in other cities because the light rail lacks destinations that are not convenient to drive. If the light rail can directly serve the airport, it will change how the system is used and perceived. While many people have brought up the idea for many years, it was repeatedly ignored by the City of San Jose and VTA (which the City has a controlling stake on).

While the PRT proponents welcome the attention received in San Jose, it is another loss of opportunity for a more cost effective transportation. Even if the PRT has proven to be a reliable technology, it will still be slower and less convenient for riders than extending light rail directly to the airport. Even if PRT has applications beyond the airport, its proclaimed advantages can easily be met by automobile and bike sharing, along with better bike and ped infrastructures.

First day of express light rail

With little fanfare and limited press coverage (compared to Caltrain's Baby Bullet a few years ago), VTA rolled off its express light rail trips. The new trips go from Santa Teresa to Baypointe and do not stop between Ohlone/Chynoweth and Convention Center stations. The cars used for the express trips have special blue and orange wrap and also have free wifi.

VTA Boardmember Sam Liccardo and general manager Michael Burns were on the platform at Ohlone/Chynoweth waiting for the first train to arrive from Santa Teresa. Other VTA top brass were there as well. There were no speeches nor ribbon cutting. However some riders were treated with free Red Bulls and newspapers. Liccardo boarded the first northbound express train presumably heading to the City Hall.

When a northbound express train arrives, another one deadheads to Santa Teresa.

At other stations, signs are in place to warn others about express trains that won't stop.

VTA is not accepting Clipper... yet.

The express light rail is an experiment whether operational changes can bring in additional riders, similar to how the Baby Bullet has transformed Caltrain. MTC is conducting a regional study of transit sustainability and recently found that Caltrain has raised ridership and improved cost effectiveness compared to most transit agencies (including VTA) because of the Baby Bullet. Caltrain is now considering providing weekend Baby Bullet service, despite deficit, to draw more riders.

The light rail system however is very different from Caltrain, so the opportunities to speed up service are limited. Let's see whether skipping stops and having onboard wifi will help draw riders.

AC Transit's armageddon

Tonight AC Transit Board of Directors will consider slashing weekend service by half, along with other cost cutting measures, to eliminate a budget shortfall resulting from not getting concessions from the agency's unions.

AC Transit already had a service cut implemented in March, another one is scheduled next month. This proposed weekend reduction would occur in December. That would be a third service cut to occur within a year.

By cutting the weekend service in half, service would only be available along the major corridors. There would be no weekend bus in Newark, Castro Valley, and most of San Lorenzo. Weekend service to San Francisco would be eliminated as well. The only way to get across the Bay would be BART and ferries. On the other hand, line 217 would stay and connect with VTA light rail in Milpitas.

In addition, AC Transit plans to cut all overnight service except lines 800 and 801, which serve BART stations and are partially funded by bridge tolls (RM2).

This budget crisis and its unions' unwillingness to give concessions is forcing the AC Transit to consider contracting as a cost saving option. Also on the agenda is a plan to begin closing an in-house paratransit division and transfer the work to private contractors. By doing so, AC Transit can save more than a million dollars per year. The agency is also contemplating contracting out transbay and school services, which are provided mostly during the peak hours. Under the current union work rules, peak hour only service result in higher cost due to overtime, even though the work itself can be less than full-time.

VTA ridership down, bus shelters, paratransit

As expected, VTA ridership fell because of the poor economy (which caused fare hikes, service cuts, and fewer people commuting due to unemployment). During the last fiscal year, bus ridership has gone down 7.3% compared to the year before, and Light rail ridership has gone down by about 9.3%. Ridership on paratransit has dropped by 12.8%, which was partly caused by an increase in fares for premium service to $16 per trip. Same-day and open return rides fell by 38% and 64% respectively.

While VTA is not proposing any additional service cuts in the near future, you might see dirtier bus shelters. Most of the bus shelters in Santa Clara County were built and are currently maintained by Clear Channel, which sells advertising spaces on 75% of the bus shelters. Clear Channel pays VTA and the cities a portion of the ad revenue. The ad agency also pays contractors to clean the shelters.

Because of the economy, VTA was not able to attract new proposals from ad agencies to replace and maintain the shelters. Instead VTA staff has recommended to extend the Clear Channel's contract for 2 years. As part of the contract extension, Clear Channel would reduce advertising to only half of all shelters (because it couldn't sell that many) and all the shelters would have fewer trash clean ups (because it cost them too much to pick up garbage illegally dumped by neighbors).

Currently most shelters are cleaned weekly with some others cleaned 2 or 3 times per week. The contract extension would cut the total cleanings by 2/3. Some of the shelters would also have the trash bins removed.

VTA really doesn't have a choice here. The ad agencies are not able to offer VTA better deals and VTA cannot afford to clean and maintain shelters on its own.

For paratransit riders, most of them should be pleased to know that Outreach would continue to be VTA's paratransit broker for at least 2 years. Over the years, there were rumors that VTA would drop Outreach as its paratransit broker. In 2004, as part of Pete Cipolla's cost cutting move, VTA contracted with Orthopaedic Hospital in Los Angeles for paratransit eligibility verification. The contract drew criticisms from the disabled community because of its policy to require an in-person interview. VTA finally relented and Outreach resumed eligibility process in 2006.

VTA staff is stating on-the-record that its relationship with Outreach has provided better customer service and helped save VTA money. With Outreach conducting the eligibility process, it has directed some people who are not eligible for paratransit to enroll with other transportation programs that Outreach provides (and not funded by VTA). Over the years, Outreach has received federal grants to replace paratransit vehicles which VTA otherwise would have to fund. Recently, Outreach has also coordinated with other non-profits to share vehicles for paratransit rides, which reduced per trip cost by more than half.

Overall, Outreach helped control VTA's cost and improve farebox recovery. Currently the farebox recovery for paratransit is 10.7%. In comparison, farebox recovery for paratransit is 7.5% in Santa Cruz and East Bay, 8.7% in Sacramento, and 3.2% at SamTrans.

Express light rail coming this October

Following the recommendations of the light rail COA conducted last year, VTA staff is planning to implement weekday express light rail service from South San Jose effective October 4. The new trips will start from Santa Teresa to Baypointe and will run non-stop from Ohlone/Chynoweth to Convention Center stations. All other trips will remain unchanged.

The express trips are expected to save 5-6 minutes between Ohlone/Chynoweth and Convention Center, which is about 36% for those traveling between those two stations, or 12% for those traveling between Santa Teresa and Baypointe.

Northbound express trains leaving Santa Teresa: 7:16 a.m., 7:46 a.m., 8:16 a.m.

Southbound express trains leaving Baypointe: 4:07 p.m., 4:37 p.m., 5:07 p.m.

In addition, staff is also planning to extend some night trips (9:51 p.m. and 10:21 p.m.) departing from Winchester to Baypointe instead of Civic Center. This will help riders that need to connect with the late night light rail replacement bus leaving from Tasman to Mountain View.

SamTrans following suit on COA

Following the footsteps VTA took a few years ago, SamTrans is now working a COA. In addition to finding ways to improve the bus system, the agency is hoping the COA would help improve SamTrans' financial stability. Because of the economic crisis and reduction of state transit funding, SamTrans has already eliminated most express bus routes. SamTrans' trouble is also affecting Caltrain, as the agency plans to eliminate operating subsidies (the remaining San Mateo County subsidy would only come from the 2004 Measure A sales tax) the next fiscal year.

Although San Mateo County is located adjacent to Santa Clara County, SamTrans environment is vastly different from VTA. SamTrans primarily serves a narrow corridor centered on El Camino Real. Being a smaller county, SamTrans only collects a fraction of the sales tax revenue that VTA receives, yet SamTrans provides financial support for two regional rail systems.

One of the possibilities for SamTrans is to provide deviated fixed route service. Under ADA, transit agencies are required to provide door-to-door paratransit service for disabled riders who cannot use regular transit. With deviated fixed route service, the bus would stay on a regular route to serve all riders and go off route to pick up and drop off qualified disabled riders. It would help meet the ADA mandate without providing segregated service. The bus agency in San Joaquin County currently provides such service and it is helping the agency to control cost on disabled service.

Free VTA schedules on your iPhone/iPod Touch

Vashishtha Jogi, who developed the original iPhone/iPod Touch app for VTA, has released a free version of the same application supported by advertisement.

The full version with additional features is available for $1.99.

The current version has updated July 12 schedules.

A ride on the 22

One of the VTA Watch readers Arcady had an interesting experience on the 22:

Last night I was coming back from Fremont to Sunnyvale, taking the 180 to Downtown San Jose to connect to the 22. It was all going quite nicely, the 180 was just a couple minutes late, there was a good amount of time to connect to the 22, it left on time at 11 pm... and then one of the passengers, who had probably had imbibed considerably earlier in the night, decided to puke up some of what he had earlier drunk. Now, this in itself was an annoyance, but I helped the other passengers open some windows and everything seemed to be fine. Until the bus driver realized what had happened. At that point he stopped the bus, probably conferred with supervisors by radio, and then told everyone "this bus ride is over, everyone off" and promised that a replacement bus would arrive eventually, but it would take at least half an hour to do so.

As this was still near downtown, I opted to walk to the train station and take a taxi back, so I did not see the end of this story. But I also didn't know about this VTA policy. It's certainly a major annoyance to passengers, who are now at least half an hour late (and potentially miss their connections with other buses, like the SamTrans at Palo Alto). On the other hand, yeah, there's something of a health and safety hazard with vomit on the floor. Anyway, I thought you might be interested in hearing this little VTA anecdote.

Could AC Transit drivers go on strike?

AC Transit today issued a statement to its workers urging them to stay on the job. Recently the agency was not able to reach an agreement with the union and it is imposing a contract on those workers. Currently the union is suing the agency trying to overturn that contract. If the court rules in favor of AC Transit, the workers could go on strike as soon as next week.

Regardless of the court outcome, nobody wins in this fight. If the union win back the benefits and old work rules, it will increase costs the agency. Because AC Transit doesn't have sufficient funding to begin with, AC Transit would have to cut costs by eliminating services, resulting in layoffs. AC Transit already plans for another round of service cuts later in the summer after the first one went into effect in March.

If the union chooses to strike, it would receive little if any sympathy from the public. A strike could have a long term negative effect to the transit system as some of the customers would go buy a used car to get around. Once they have a car, they won't go back to the bus.

Voters in the AC Transit service areas have been pretty sympathetic to the agency and have approved parcel tax increases in the past to maintain service. That attitude could change if the public believes that the workers are not willing to make concessions to save services. In San Francisco, there will be a measure on the November ballot that would end the automatic wage increases to Muni drivers. Muni drivers have refused to make concessions twice, whereas other unionized workers in San Francisco have made various concessions including furloughs.

This economic crisis is deep and severe enough that all prior projections about populations, jobs, and tax revenue probably have thrown off course permanently. We need a new business model that can sustain transit services in light of declining revenues. Labor costs is an important factor, especially as labor costs in the Bay Area have grown faster (while productivity has declined) than the rest of the nation during the last decade. Of course, we cannot forget that the Bay Area has made many bad transportation decisions during that decade. Too much money has been spent on wasteful projects and not enough money has been invested to maintain essential services.

Around the Valley this summer

An upgraded TVM has been spotted at Gish Station, that is supposed to take ATM and credit cards soon.

MST now has MCI coaches.

Late night service will be coming back on line 63 on a trial basis. If this trip carries sufficient riders, it can continue on a permanent basis.

...

New bus stop locations at San Jose Diridon Station effective next week.

Caltrain is rebuilding the Santa Clara Station partly to accommodate ACE and Amtrak trains. ACE used to stop at the Santa Clara Station from 2001 to 2005, when Caltrain decided to kick ACE trains out of the station to make room for more Baby Bullet trains (Southbound ACE trains used to stop on the northbound platform). San Francisco County Transportation Authority is a funding partner on this project (see the TA logo above the VTA logo).